Using a smoke bomb and a handgun, a hooded gunman dressed all in black opened fire during “college night” at a country music bar in Southern California, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing in terror, authorities said Thursday. The gunman was later found dead.

Authorities said the motive for the attack Wednesday night was under investigation.

Patrons screamed in fear, shouted “Get down!” and used barstools to smash second-floor windows and jump to safety as gunfire erupted at the Borderline Bar & Grill, a hangout popular with students from nearby California Lutheran University. The dead included 11 people inside the bar and a sheriff’s sergeant who was the first officer inside the door, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.

“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Dean said in the parking lot. “There’s blood everywhere.”…

The NRA is far weaker and poorer than in past elections, and the House of Representatives more Democratic (but the Senate more GOP). Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) won re-election. So perhaps some measure gun control has a slightly better chance of passage.

The Borderline was in Thousand Oaks in Ventura County north of Los Angeles. The bar was about five miles from California Lutheran and twenty from Pepperdine,